At the Choo Choo Barn in Strasburg, Pa., it's the little things that count

A model train layout is an individual thing. Every hobbyist creates his or her own vision in a scaled-down world of railroad lines, buildings, landscape and community.

But few take it as personally as Tom Groff.

On Groff’s layout is the replica of the home where he grew up. On the other side of the setup is the house where he and his wife now live. Circling the neighborhood is a miniature version of his hometown’s annual Memorial Day Parade. And that flashing police car is giving a ticket to Groff’s son for speeding in his red Jeep.

But the biographical nature of the renowned Choo Choo Barn goes beyond a few tableaux on the 1,700-square-foot layout in the Strasburg, Pa., tourist landmark. This is a two-generation creation, a mainly hand-built masterwork with more than 150 animated objects. The Groff family has raised train layout to an art form.

Twenty-two trains on three gauges roam the Groff countryside, passing through an exact model of the nearby Strasburg Station, or stopping for passengers in the suburbs, or pausing for maintenance at the depot. They pass mountains where downhill skiers slide by, past parks where ballplayers round bases, past a wedding reception, past a funeral. Streams flow in and out of mountains to terminate in a live goldfish-filled pond. A jet plane circles overhead. A miniature flag flutters in a constant breeze. And every 20 minutes the sun sets on Groff’s Traintown, the stars come out and warm lights come up inside the buildings, on the movie marquee, and on the headlights of the cars and trucks.

When daylight returns, the zoo springs to life: a giraffe nods, an alligator yawns, a turtle’s head slowly sways. The circus is always in town: an acrobat bounces on a trampoline, a unicyclist crosses the high wire. At the amusement park, the monorail pulls in and antique cars roll about.

It’s not all fun and games. This is Lancaster County, and the Amish men are raising a barn. Construction is under way on a new road. An accident leads to a traffic jam.

Careful viewers will see that it was the rabbit behind the bush that apparently caused the crash. They will also see the hunter outsmarted by a crafty groundhog, a youngster flying a model plane, and the orange glow as a man welds a spot on his car.

“I love detail,” explained Groff.

He also loves a little drama. Every five minutes, a fire breaks out at the A-frame chalet. The nearby fire station alarm goes off, and the pumper pulls up to the home. Out jump the firefighters. One races up the ladder and starts to chop, another pulls out the hose, and a third carries out a survivor. It’s always the showstopper.

Laying the tracks
The Groffs’ introduction to model railroading began back in the 1950s, when George Groff had an excuse to buy his first train, a $12 Lionel Scout set, when his son Gary reached the age of two. “One train turned into two and then three, and a year later the dining room became a big layout,” said Tom. “That’s how it really got started.”

Younger son Tom was three years old when the family moved to a larger home in Strasburg that had a huge basement. “My dad said, ‘This is where the train’s going to be.’ We had a fairly good-sized home layout back in the ’50s. We’d work on it in September and October so that by Thanksgiving everything was ready.”

The display included animated pieces mostly of balsa wood, crafted by George Groff, a house painter and flooring specialist. Among the earliest scenes he built was the mountain with its steady stream of skiers. Relatives and friends made regular visits, and classes from the nearby elementary school trooped through the Groff basement.

In composition books, his parents kept a record of guests and the dates that they visited. “I have one of those old books with the names of a guy and girl and the year they came, the next year when they got married, and the next year when they brought their child,” Groff said.

When Gary was approaching college age in 1960, George Groff began looking about for extra income. Tourism in Lancaster County was just finding its bearings, and a group of men had just bought the land and old buildings of the abandoned Strasburg rail station, which they revived as a destination for steam locomotive buffs.

Just down the road from the station was an old red barn. George Groff drove past that barn one day and had “one of those light-bulb moments,” his son explained. Rather than sell his beloved trains to pay for tuition, he would move and expand the display. The Choo Choo Barn opened Thanksgiving Day 1961. Admission was 50 cents for adults and a quarter for kids.

The painting business eventually closed down as the train display grew and a gift shop was added. Tom Groff’s mom sewed circus tents, brother Gary helped out on semester breaks, and Tom went from high school to the Barn each afternoon to help his dad and to watch him construct and wire the layout.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think this was what I would do for the rest of my life,” Groff said.

He left the family business for four years to work in two area foundries – and to get married. But after a near-electrocution, he decided foundry work wasn’t for him.

In 1979, his parents retired and Groff and his wife, Linda, took over the operation of the Barn.

Hills and valleys
The first season for the new owners was a killer. It was the year of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, a polio scare in the Amish community, and a gas crisis. But they weathered the tourism drought and, a few years later, launched a hobby shop a short distance away. In 1988, they moved the shop next to the Barn, extended the building a little more, and added a restaurant, candy store, and later a railroad books and video business on the second level.

In 1993, the Groffs opened a shop devoted to the popular Thomas the Tank Engine, becoming the second-largest single store dealer in the country for the children’s toy line. They also did brisk business with Thomas accessories on the Internet in the ’90s. But when the parent company of the Thomas toys changed hands, sales of the product were opened to many more Web sites. Independent stores like the Groffs’ were hit hard.

The aging profile of the train collector has also pulled the brakes on places like the Choo Choo Barn.

“When Thomas got so huge, we saw that as a boon to the model railroading business,” Groff said. “We really thought that would help bring the industry back again, because it would get kids interested in trains at a very early age. We were hoping that parents would get them train sets after Thomas was outgrown."

“But that didn’t happen. Years ago, everybody blamed slot cars for decreasing interest in trains. Then it was video games, the Internet, and year-round sports vying for children’s time and attention."

“The train hobby business is a tough business,” Groff summarized.

It’s also what he loves and champions as “one of the most diverse hobbies that there is. You can learn carpentry, electronics, landscaping, how to build models. And it is as wide open as your imagination. You can learn how to take nothing and make something from it, whether it’s a pile of wood or pieces of metal. You can learn to read blueprints. You can learn to use your hands and your brain. It’s like learning a craft,” Groff said. “What we do here is an art form.”

‘A Man Place’
The Choo Choo Barn closes its doors from January through March, when the entire setup is cleaned and updated. Planks are erected over the layout so Groff can crawl out to the central points. Vacuum hoses in the ceiling drop down to reach each corner of Traintown. The creeks are drained, the trains are serviced, the tracks are polished and broken pieces are repaired. Sometimes a whole section is excavated and recreated. “Things change because the world changes,” Groff said.

For example, the miniature Amish blacksmith shop made by his father was transformed into a machine shop. Groff constantly searches for new ideas for the already densely populated Traintown.

“There’s always something to be done. I have a list of stuff, and I walk around and say, that should move, or why didn’t I do that? There’s always a lot of small stuff, like adding more working headlights to the cars.”

During those winter months, Groff disappears into his home workshop, which is the size of a two-car garage and includes amenities like TV, DVD, VCR, shelves of movies and music, and all his tools. “It’s a fantastic man place,” Groff said, where he often labors till midnight on a project.

His training came at his father’s worktable. “I used to watch him when I was a kid. And I guess my creativity and my knack for being able to do this came from him.”

He is happy to share his techniques and his knowledge, and plans to start a blog later this year that other hobbyists can read at the Barn Web site, www.choochoobarn.com. “We don’t have secrets, and I like to help guys out,” Groff said.

Much of the process can already be observed in photos and text at the Backstage section of the website.

The peak years for the Choo Choo Barn were in the early 1990s, when close to 90,000 annual paid admissions were recorded. “This year was not a great year,” Groff said. “But everything is cyclical. We know eventually this will come back, too.” As they did in that first difficult year, “we just have to ride out the storm.”

The Choo Choo Barn, on Route 741 East in Strasburg, Pa., is open seven days a week from April through December. The doors open at 10 a.m. and the last tour begins at 4:30 p.m. For more information, call 800-450-2920 or 717-687-7911, or log on to www.choochoobarn.com.